The basement was small, about six square meters with a height of a little less than two meters. It contained an atrocious smell, reminiscent of a gutter in some ghetto and showed traces of recent use, what with the footprints in the dust, the dirty sheets beside the innermost wall with some suspicious liquids around them and pieces of rope that must have been used to restrain the previous occupant of the place, tethered to a pillar nearby.
Observing everything, Lucas concluded that the second mission objective had been kept in captivity here but, remembering how the terrorists were getting ready to move, she might now be in the other building serving as headquarters with the supplies.
After all, if she had been killed, they probably wouldn't have needed to move the body and would have forsaken it in the basement.
Going back to the ground floor, he discreetly left the house and went around to approach the last bastion of the terrorists from the other side. While they may expect him, taking any possible advantage was a must to stay efficient.
However, when he finally entered the building, he didn't encounter any resistance, leaving him perplexed.
'I don't think the hostage will be left unguarded so there should still be some terrorists alive. Either they are hiding and praying or they are waiting to ambush me.'
He went around the scattered supplies, checking for any hiding hostile. Noiseless like a cat, he closed in on the flight of stairs and started going up, taking care to avoid the places that seemed not solid enough.
When he was three stairs away from the upper floor, he finally got the position of one of the last elimination targets. He heard a slow breath that was trying to hide itself and would have missed it if not for the enhancements that came with his recent flirt with death.
The target was hiding beside the stairs, certainly wishing to catch him off guard. To prevent any surprise, he carefully prepared a frag, counted two seconds then fiercely propelled it while turning around and crouching.
Immediately standing back up, he flew over the last stairs and checked the results of the grenade blast, only finding a smoking body with burned face since the grenade did not manage to land with the remaining second before exploding.
'That's why they say: don't trust the five seconds before detonation written on the package by the manufacturer, always count to three.'
Using his Glock, Lucas added a bullet hole to the unfortunate terrorist head before resuming his search.
Coming to a corridor after a corner, he saw a room at the end. Since it did not have a door, he could see two people inside, one in front of the other. The one behind was assuredly a terrorist, having a gun pointing at the temple of the one in front.
The latter must have been the hostage, even if he had difficulties identifying the said person as a woman with only the long hair that was as dirty as any part of her body and, after concentrating, the very modest protrusions on the chest behind the dirty blouse.
The observations taking only one breath due to his improved reaction speed, Lucas saw the terrorist open his mouth, surely to threaten him with the hostage, so he rewarded him in advance with a bullet through the eye to destroy the necessary parts of the brain to prevent unconscious reactions before death, like pressing the trigger.
Lucas wanted to keep advancing and finally end his mission but, suddenly, a bullet impacted the ground beside the woman, startling her.
From the side the door opening, an Arabic accent thick English came:
"Gun..., throw... Throw it!!!"
********
Today was just another day in hell for her, another day of captivity. It has been one week now, if she remembered correctly, unless she was already crazy but with the little bit of hope she had, she was trying to hold on.
She didn't know where she was but maybe the heat of this place would kill her before her captors. Or maybe she would freeze one night and not wake up anymore.
However, when the sultriness of the day was at its peak, she heard gunshots, indicating a battle. Two of her captors then came to the basement where she was kept, to keep her under watch probably.
This fed her hope of being saved, even if her captors were talking and laughing without anxiety.
They were proven right in their confidence since, more than an hour later maybe, the noises of the battle stopped followed by her captors receiving instructions and leaving without sparing her a glance.
The despair she felt after the death of her little hope soon turned into numbness, as if she had always known of her sealed fate.
So, when they came back later to take her to another building, she didn't struggle nor show any resistance. She just dazedly observed that she was in a town in a desert which justified the horrible temperatures.
She saw vehicles being loaded and the devils-in her mind- going around working, laughing and sometimes with some looking at her like a piece of meat, freezing her heart in her graying world.
When she was placed in a new room, she suddenly heard the devils panicking then sounds of gunshots, this time closer, just outside of the new building where she was being held, before going into the distance.
Even in her numbness, she heard and felt the explosion that seemed to shake the whole town before she was taken upstairs by those who were left to watch her.
She heard the sounds of battles that should have originated from her old nest, followed some time later by a blast from not far, just around the corner.
But even with that, she couldn't birth any hope. Not with a gun on the head, not with a rancid odor of bad hygiene and terror mixed in the breath grazing her neck.
Even when the masked man that seemed to have terrorized the devils turned the corner and in an amazing show of reflex and marksmanship eliminated the one behind her, she could only look at the one behind the door that could kill her at any moment.
Actually, she thought it not bad to die simply, avoiding the cruel fate that was certain to come with an uninterrupted captivity.
So, when she watched the man take the magazine out of his gun and throw it into the room under threat, she was starting to consider how to provoke her own death.
She watched as the man kept advancing while taking the last bullet out of the gun chamber and throwing it too when the second bullet of the impatient terrorist hit the ground beside her.
She saw the terrorist beside the door breath heavily from terror, relax when he finally saw the empty gun thrown inside and come out of hiding with his AKM pointed toward what should have seemed to be a monster or the devil to him.
When, finally, she was about to move, having decided to die on her own terms, she saw an incredible scene.
As if in slow motion, she saw the unarmed masked man violently tug the AKM before it could discharge any fatal object.
She then saw him proceed to systematically dismantle the terrorist with a knife neither the latter nor she herself knew where it came from nor when it was unsheathed.
Through cuts and stabs never in fatal or important places, she watched in fascination and horror as her last tormentor fell down and started convulsing and bleeding out after the amazing show of dexterity demonstrated on him.
With eyes without ripples, the masked man threw the bloodied knife away and sheathed the new one he took from his downed target. He then picked the gun he threw earlier, put a new magazine inside after checking it and engaged a bullet in the chamber before tactically placing it at rest across his chest and asking her in a cold tone, dry and devoid of emotions:
"Name, age, affiliation."
Looking at those inhuman eyes, she could only answer while stuttering , having lost her earlier numbness to a sudden chill:
"Sa-Sa-Sa-Sa-Samantha. Samantha Monroe. I am 21. My-my-my father is Joseph Monroe."
The masked man fixed his empty eyes on her for a while, seeming to look at a cadaver, making her gulp nervously, before turning around and leaving, throwing full disinterest: "Follow me."
Hence, tailing her savior with a sluggishness fully chased away by the chill the black masked man inspired in her, she saw him check the vehicles in the plaza and put some supplies in one of them.
Meanwhile, she felt horrified seeing the bodies and traces left by the previous battle, not being able to imagine one man causing all of that.
Timidly, she asked: "Are you sent by my father? Are you alone?"
Unfortunately, she was ignored as the man went through the supplies around and arranged them with a certain purpose, moving some to the other cars while leaving her bewildered.
When he finished whatever he was doing, he took out a radio, waited for a moment then said while pointing what looked like a camera at her: "I'm done. Check the package."
Now she understood why he made her wash her face previously.
Seemingly having gotten an answer he was satisfied with, he threw the camera in one of the other cars after pointing it at something in the car he had chosen and saying something then continued: "Meet me one hundred kilometers northeast of the town. Be on time."
Throwing away the radio too, he made her enter the car he readied and drove her out of the town after setting fire to the supplies.
She turned around to look at her former personal hell and saw, beyond the trail of sand raised by the car, the heavy smoke climbing higher and not long after, she understood her mysterious and cold savior arrangements with the supplies when she heard distinctive sounds like the town was celebrating her departure or maybe, mourning for the victims of the carnage it was just witness to:
"Boom!!! Boom!!! Boom!!!"